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On Fri, Jul 21, 2006 at 08:46:58AM +0100, Daniel Drake wrote: |
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> Michal can provide you with clearer answers but here is what I know: |
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> |
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> fbsplash was submitted about a year ago. Some developers commented "do |
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> it in userspace, you can do almost all of that there", and others gave |
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> feedback on things which must be changed or fixed before it is to be |
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> considered. I don't think Michal has had time to finish addressing those |
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> points -- when are you going to get SuSE to hire him? :) |
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I'm sorry this reply is so terribly delayed, but I have been away at the |
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time this message was sent. What Daniel said above is true. I didn't |
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really have time to address or dispute all these issues (I'm not sure |
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all of them were fixable). |
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What's more, I don't think it is possible to get fbsplash merged at this |
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point. Currently, the predominant vision for a themed console, with |
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bell'n'whistles and stuff, is to do it completely in userspace (see |
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the rather lengthy 'OpenGL-based framebuffer concepts' discussion [lkml, |
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June 2006]). The idea is to do fbcon in userspace and keep only a very |
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simple console driver in the kernel (for things such as printing |
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oopses). Obviously, having the console completely in userspace makes |
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it possible to do virtually anything with it -- the possibilities are |
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by no means limited by just setting background images. |
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I have to say I like this idea of a userspace console and plan to work |
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on it after I'm finished with all the old stuff I'm stuck with right |
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now. |
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> I don't think fbsplash is too far away from possible kernel inclusion, |
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> but vesafb-tng is. It is x86-only and is a big hack by design. Here's a |
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> recent comment from Michal: |
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> |
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> >Wrt the future of vesafb-tng -- it's unlikely any code can be moved |
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> >to vesafb. The way to go (and this seems to be both my own opinion |
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> >and the opinion of the fb developers) is to have the vm86 code |
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> >separated into an userspace application (which will also make it |
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> >possible for the driver to work on non-x86, since x86emu can be used |
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> >in place of vm86). I'm going to work on this during the summer, but I |
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> >wouldn't want to set any deadlines or promise completion dates just |
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> >yet :) |
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The quote says it all :) |
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Best regards. |
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-- |
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Michal Januszewski JID: spock@×××××××××.org |
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Gentoo Linux Developer http://people.gentoo.org/spock |